Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1887-04-08
AND NOW THE UNDERrAKERs.

The regulating craze mas become aDSo-
lutely ridiculous 1t is being carried to
such extremes as to be odious, and deserves
the assault of satire and ridicule and the
protests of those who believe paternalism
in government to be dangerous. Nearly
everything under the sun has either been
legislatively regulated or suggested for
regulation in these days; and at the last
comes the New York Legislature with a
scheme for investigation and regulation of
the business of undertakes. The
people certainly had not contemplated
this class as likely to be brought to the bar
of public judgment, or required to cut
their cloth by legislative measure. Their
vocation is so intimately related to the
profoundest sympathies and tenderest emo
tons, that no one had thought they could
possibly be made the subject of legislative
inquiries, which deal rather with things
of active life than with the silence and in
ertnesS of the things of death.
We have no disposition to treat lightly
any subject related to the dead. To us
they are sacred, and the grave and all its
belongings things to be treated with ten
derness. But though the iron has entered
the soul, and the anguish of the last part
ing is tie binding hearts beneath and
above the sod indissolubly, who can read
of this new scheme of regnlative socialism
and close his eyes to its absurdity and
righteousness, or refrain from inquiring,
with something of humorous spirit "What
is to be the standard of fitness for the of
fee of the solemn-visaged men% We
learn that the "new idea" is to have the
whole undertaking business regulated
something according to the approved
modern methods Of legislators who "get
their work in" upon unfortunate victims
who possess business that will endure the
regulatlve rack and not die in the midst
of its agonies. Thus, the legislator in New
York who has discovered this new
field for the exercise of legislative ingenu-
ity, proposes to have the whole undertake
ing business investigated, with view to
permitting only qualified men to en-
gage in the business of putting people un-
der the turf He would have board of
" Funeral Directors" created, before whom
all persons engaged in the business shall
be presented for examination, and only
those shall coffin the dead who are granted
certificates of competency. AS towhat are
to be the requisites we are not fully in
formed. Possibly they may relate to the
facial righteousness that BELTS the under
taker; or it may be required that the
throat-buttoned black coat and the i'm
maculate gloves shall be of specified
grade; that funeral pals shall be given
certain draping, and the solemn nodding
black plumes shall be adjusted to a con-
ventional fall. 1t is possible that a
regulation cut of the shroud will be ex-
acted, and the people who sleep the last
sleep be required to conform to the latest
fashion in final garments. 1t may be that
under the proposed regulative measure the
charges of the undertaken for funeral
transportation will be so adjusted as to
make the distance from the church to the
cemetery bear certain relation to the fee
exacted for the service, and thus the long
and short haul regulatiye idea be applied
in new direction. Possibly the licensed
undertaken will be required to exemplify
the method of trimming a casket or posing
the weary head in its last rest that he
may be examined concerning his knowl-
edge of embalming, upon his method of
dealing with mourners, and his skill in
bringing on funerals on time. If the regu-
latiGn should extend to the arrangement
of undertaker's shops so that there shall
no longer be barred to public gaze long ar
rays of shiveringly suggestive emblems of
mortality touching elbows in a grim
dress parade, the "bill" would have at
least one redeeming feature. Yet the bet
ter undertakers have voluntarily intro
duced such a reform, and their es-
Establishments are now made rather
inviting by Che absence of funeral
emblems It is limited that one
purpose of the new idea is to insure
the better care of the bodies of the dead
in the interests of public health. If that
is the intention, the proposed law should
require undertakers to become orena-
tionists, and to abandon the grave and the
coffin altogether, since sanitary science,
reason and economy condemn the conven-
tionM Inflammation OF the dead, and the
decay Of human flesh in the earth TO pot
son the soil and exhale vicious odors that
pollute the atmosphere and bring disease
to the nostrils of the living 1t is prob
able, however, as New York contempo-
rary suggests, that the underlying motive
of the "new idea" is born of sort of
trade-union sentiment. For it appears
that there are more undertakes in cities
than the business of burial will support,
and the "old hands propose to prevent
apprentice encroachment upon a business
already oyer-crowded The bill ought to
fail, and the undertakes and the public
be left to settle the question whether peo-
pie shall die faster or some OF the gentle
men of doleful countenance engage in
more cheerful and better-paying vocations.
If the bill should pass, and the New York
example become epidemic, we may have
reason to fear that some early Legislature
nearer home viii undertake to regulate
our dying.
THE New York Star says that the fail
ure of Mrs. Potter, and other evidences,
indicate that the american craze Ia Lon
don is over All good Americans should
be glad of it. That American women
have been the idols of the British public
49,. q.